Do You Still Think Big Data Is No Big Deal?

Borgman and Jeanne Johnson, business-intelligence principal at KPMG, have traded thoughts on what Big Data can do for business and what business can do to harness the power of the data it already has.

Surprisingly, the latter could turn out to be more important than the former in the short run. Business already has lots of data; it just doesn't know what to do with it. Before tackling the massive quantities of unstructured data such as tweets, product reviews, and Facebook "likes" that comprise the volume and variety of what's known as Big Data, companies should first figure out how to make use of the structured data "” numbers in spreadsheets, numbers stored in a business's servers "” they can retrieve from their operational systems.

"Big Data is a great opportunity," KPMG's Johnson said. "I think it's changing the way business is going to be done, but it takes time to get the good foundation to harness the data."